Fuck.

Fuck, indeed. A lot has transpired since my feeble post shortly after the ball dropped in Time's Square on New Year's Day. Since then, my beautiful pearl white 1996 Buick Riviera, a car for which I had not even written a proper page for for its inclusion into my fleet section, blew a head gasket on the way to a Boston Bruins game I had tickets for on the Second. With just over 131,000 ticks on the clock, most would think me crazy to swap an engine into it, and to you I say fuck off. It is by far the best car I've ever owned and, after fourteen months and 16,000 miles of faithful, relatively trouble-free service, she owes me nothing.

Thankfully, since I am an automotive preservationist of the highest degree, or what some might call a junk man, I always have at least one automobile on reserve to be pulled out for just such an emergency. Also, because I am an unforgiving snob with an image to uphold, and need all the creature comforts one may find in the most modern of cars, I make sure that at least one of said reserve automobiles is a neglected luxury marque. Enter the 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Weighing in just shy of three tons, the big red tank handles marvelously in the snow; no chains or sandbags required. Since she became my legally registered vehicle on January 4th, thanks to my buddy Rich who helped me wash the paperwork through the much more lenient state of New Hampshire, I've done quite a bit of work to the old girl in a short amount of time to make her a bit more roadworthy. Here's a breakdown, sadly without photographs as I have been rushing to squeeze all of this in between work and other things currently going on, of what's been done so far:

-Removed what were quite possibly the spark plugs the car left the factory with so many years ago, replaced with nice new AC Delco Rapidfires
-Changed distributor cap, rotor, ignition coil, and spark plug wires
-Checked timing, advanced twelve degrees!
-Replaced leaking fuel pump
-Un-deleted fuel filter some hack sliced out so many years ago
-New PCV valve and elbow
-Replaced enough vacuum and emissions hose to circle the world nine times
-New blower motor and blower motor relay (heat is a plus in January here in Massachusetts)
-Oil and filter changed

And still left to do:

-Change rear end fluid and rear cover gasket
-Re-hang exhaust
-Slip somebody a twenty to fudge an inspection sticker for me
-Do donuts in the local church parking lot next time it snows

Hopefully my beloved Riviera will be back on the road before not too long and I can then concentrate on putting the Coupe in the hands of its next loving owner, who will finalize its rightful place on the open road, continuing the new lease on life I have given it.